


Death by Spirits

by notkingyet



Category: Lynes and Mathey Series - Amy Griswold & Melissa Scott
Genre: Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-20 17:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkingyet/pseuds/notkingyet
Summary: A self-proclaimed ghost-finder may use nonconforming metaphysics in his seances, and a well-meaning friend begs Ned and Julian to come to the countryside to investigate. But a night spent in halls as hallowed as they are haunted might prove more than their match.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigrrmilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/gifts).



“Lynes,” Ned said as Julian entered his chambers. “Thank you for coming. Allow me to introduce Mr. Dodgson.”

Julian, who’d set out the moment he received Ned’s telegram informing him of a pending case, paused upon the threshold to take in the situation. The chambers themselves appeared largely unchanged—the same single room, the same two desks, the same Ned with his athletic build belying his sharp mind. The only new element was Mr. Dodgson himself: short, pudgy, mousy brown hair and whiskers, dressed in a suit befitting a clerk—bank clerk, by Julian’s guess—and with his beady brown eyes enlarged by his round spectacles. Ned’s secretary, Miss Frost, was nowhere to be seen. Julian supposed Ned had sent her out for privacy’s sake. Not that there was much that couldn’t be said in front of Miss Frost, but some gentlemen found it impossible to speak freely in front of a woman.

Julian, who entertained no such ludicrous notions, shook Dodgson’s hand—soft, clammy, limp—and stepped back, leaning his hip against Miss Frost’s desk.

“Mr. Dodgson has a job for us,” Ned continued, telling Julian nothing he hadn’t already put into his telegram, and turned to the man himself. “I must ask you to give over the facts of the matter in your own words once more.”

“It’s rather a peculiar case,” Dodgson said as if apologizing.

“If it wasn’t, Mr. Mathey would not have bothered calling me in,” Julian replied, adding a friendly smile to ward off Ned’s disapproving look. “The details, if you please.”

Dodgson steadied himself with a deep breath and began. “My friend—Carnacki, Mr. Thomas Carnacki—has been asked to investigate a haunting, and I fear he may be in over his head.”

Julian’s mind raced to recollect any possible knowledge of the name. The final piece fell into place with a clunk, and he had to restrain himself from expressing his natural disdain as he blurted, “Not the ghost-finder?”

“The very same,” said Dodgson, appearing very much relieved and just a little proud.

“You’re familiar with him?” Ned asked, his tone casual, but his eyebrows canted at an angle which, while so slight as to be almost imperceptible, spoke as loud as shouting to Julian. Ned knew as much about his new client’s friend as Julian knew about racehorses—which was to say, bordering on nothing.

“I am,” said Julian, with an answering expression indicating he’d fill Ned in on the more sordid details later.

Ned accepted this reply with a slight frown and nodded for Dodgson to continue his explanation.

“As you know,” said Dodgson, “my friend Carnacki is in the habit of investigating such hauntings. No doubt you’ve read the account of the haunted _Jarvee_.”

“An account written in your own hand,” Julian cut in, unable to help himself.

Ned shot him a curious look. Julian ignored it.

A bashful smile flitted across Dodgson’s lips. “I see you are well-versed in my friend’s work.”

“Given your friend’s experience in such matters,” said Julian, “I must ask why you think his talents insufficient to meet the demands of this particular case.”

Dodgson hesitated. “You have read my accounts. Perhaps you have read many. In all you have read, you may have noticed they share a common theme. A framing device, as some more literary minds might term it.”

_Fraud_ , Julian thought, but didn’t say aloud.

Dodgson worried his handkerchief between his thumb and forefinger—a white handkerchief, cotton, not monogrammed, and not the handkerchief of a rich man, certainly, but its crisp white hue bespoke a determined attempt at respectability. “Carnacki has always invited us—his circle of friends, myself included—to dine with him while he recounts his latest adventure. And yet, despite all our years of friendship… I have never seen him perform any of his famous rituals in person.”

For the first time in his meandering speech, Dodgson surprised Julian. He’d always dismissed the Carnacki stories as simple fraud—and not particularly compelling fraud at that, the minute descriptions of the so-called rituals not withstanding even the simplest knowledge of metaphysics—but he’d thought the writer had at least been in on the scheme. To learn that the narrator had not only believed every word he’d scribed, but had since come to suspect he might be the victim of a sham, quite undid Julian’s expectations.

“These rituals,” said Ned, picking up where Julian failed to. “They are based in metaphysics?”

Julian already knew the answer— _absolutely not_ —but held his tongue for the chance to see how their client would respond.

Dodgson shook his head. “They are supernatural.”

Ned continued looking at him with an expression of one waiting for the rest of the explanation. Julian knew none would be forthcoming, based not only on his own prejudices but also on the expression of wonder which had lit up Dodgson’s small, round eyes. This wondrous glow died as it became apparent Ned didn’t view the explanation in the same miraculous light as Dodgson.

Dodgson coughed. “At least, he tells us it is supernatural. And indeed, to hear him tell it, it sounds very supernatural. Rituals, ancient and arcane. Summoning and banishing spirits, speaking with the dead, contacting other worlds, keeping the most diabolical forces at bay.”

Ned’s apparent confusion only deepened as Dodgson spoke, but by the end of it, he’d recovered himself enough to reply in a mild tone, “I see. What makes this present case so different from his past experience as to concern you?”

“Because,” said Dodgson, “for the first time, we are all to witness him at his work. He is to investigate the haunting of Lady Grey’s estate, and Lady Grey is Arkwright’s aunt—Arkwright,” he added with a significant glance at Julian, “you might recall, being one of Carnacki’s exclusive circle.”

“Of course,” said Julian, his dry tone drawing a disapproving look from Ned.

Dodgson appeared to take no notice of any of this. “And so Arkwright has convinced his aunt to invite not just Carnacki, but all of us up to her house in Cumberland, so we might witness the phenomenon for ourselves. And if we are to witness Carnacki at work after hearing all of his stories, and if some of those stories are perhaps a little embellished…”

“He may feel obligated to put on more of a show than usual,” Ned finished for him.

Dodgson nodded. “Of course, if his stories are true, then we’ve nothing to fear but the haunting itself.”

“But if he’s embellished his description of his own powers, then he may find himself outmatched by this particular haunting,” said Ned.

Julian noted how tactfully Ned circumvented the possibility that the haunting could prove just as much of a fraud as Carnacki.

“In which case,” said Dodgson, “I would certainly feel more at ease with an accomplished metaphysician at the ready. And after your work on the writing desk—!”

The recollection of Ned and Julian’s latest case, the Hand of Glory gone horribly wrong, excited Dodgson to the point where speech failed him, leaving him to stand beaming in eager and silent expectation at the pair of them.

Julian, who viewed the matter of the writing desk with more dread than satisfaction, turned to Ned for the answer.

“The haunting of Lady Grey’s house,” said Ned. “What form does it take?”

“The house was a monastery in the time of Henry VIII,” said Dodgson. “Several monks perished in the transition from property of the Church to property of the Crown. Many such apparitions have been seen floating through the halls in the intervening centuries. However, in recent months, the apparitions have intensified—no longer merely visual manifestations, but horrible sounds as well, moans and cries and the rattling of chains. Most disturbing to Lady Grey’s rest. Arkwright, hearing his aunt’s complaint, has persuaded her to allow his friends—Carnacki in particular—to stay at the house for a few nights to attempt to solve the problem. If you were to take on this case, Mr. Mathey, you and your associate would be invited to join the party and assist in the proceedings.”

Ned glanced at Julian again, who shrugged.

“I’ll admit its an intriguing case,” Ned replied slowly. “When does Carnacki intend to arrive at Lady Grey’s estate?”

Dodgson named a date within the next week, and Ned checked it against his appointment calendar. Finding no scheduling conflicts, he confirmed his willingness to consider the matter, and informed Dodgson he would give his final answer by messenger the next morning. Dodgson shook both their hands—Julian noted he had a stronger grip, though from the frantic nature of the shake, he attributed it to overexcitement—and departed.

Julian waited for Dodgson’s footsteps to echo away before turning to Ned. “Have you really never heard of the electric pentacle?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Ned, in the tone he used when he suspected he was the butt of a joke. Julian recognized it from their university days—before he’d realized its significance, he heard it often whenever he tried to make Ned mix in with his more literary friends. If he’d known then what it meant, he could have saved them both a great deal of heartache. But that was all in the past.

In the present, Julian hurried to dispel any hint of mockery—at least, of Ned. “I expect no metaphysician ever had until Carnacki came along. And, God willing, when he departs this world for the next, no one shall ever have to hear of it again.”

Ned raised his brows. “That bad?”

“It’s chicanery,” said Julian. “Pure and simple. He claims to commune with spirits, to toy with arcane forces beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings. To perform rituals which only he knows, ancient rituals he discovered and resurrected to do his mysterious work. And as Dodgson himself said, we’ve only Carnacki’s word to prove any of it true.”

“I take it you don’t believe him.”

“Do you?” Julian asked.

“No,” Ned replied, the single syllable so frank and so flat Julian couldn’t help but laugh. After a moment, Ned joined him, chuckling. “I had a hint when you called him a ghost-finder.”

“Not a title of my own invention,” Julian corrected. “Carnacki calls himself a ghost-finder. And that’s the crux of the issue. He could play at being a wizard all he liked as far as I’m concerned. But claiming to communicate with the dead…”

“Is too often synonymous with taking advantage of those in the throes of grief,” Ned finished for him.

Julian nodded. “Exactly. Though I’ll admit nothing I’ve read of Carnacki suggest he makes that his regular business. He tends to stick to those troubled by supernatural assault rather than the loss of a loved one. Though I still believe he’s a charlatan.”

“Do you think,” Ned asked, hesitating before he went on, “you could stand it long enough to assist me in the case?”

Julian blinked at him. “You’re still taking it, then.”

“If what Dodgson says is true, the implications are disturbing. We’ve had enough trouble with non-conforming metaphysics as it is.”

The allusion to their misadventure at the Dionysus Club, still fresh in Julian’s memory, was enough to sober him.

“If,” Ned said, “Carnacki is a complete fraud, we may rest easy. There are plenty of ways to manifest a haunting hoax without resorting to metaphysics.”

Indeed, Julian knew of at least four off the top of his head, though he kept the details to himself at present.

“However,” Ned continued, “if he is not a full-blown charlatan—if he has resorted to metaphysics to make his hoaxes more convincing—then he may well be toying with forces beyond his understanding, as Dodgson fears.”

Julian furrowed his brow as a thought occurred to him. “What is the official metaphysical stance on ghosts?”

“Inconclusive,” said Ned.

Julian, who’d expected to hear another flat dismissal, raised an eyebrow.

Ned, grimacing, looked about as satisfied with his own answer as Julian felt. “Most of the consulting set will dismiss it out of hand to the layman. There’s usually a rational explanation for such phenomena. A door might open without anyone touching it due to a poorly-set sigil from the previous owners.”

“Or a window might fly open because its counterweight is off-balance,” Julian added, recalling a case of his own, where the house had settled to the point that stepping upon a particular warped board would make the window crash up into its frame. Useful for burglars, less so for the residents.

Ned nodded. “But across the Commons, in the experimental and theoretical chambers…”

“One would perhaps receive a more open-minded answer?” Julian offered, his mouth quirking to one side in a half-smile.

“One would find several gentlemen spending their entire careers attempting to contact other worlds,” said Ned.

“Do any of them employ electric pentacles?”

“No.” Ned shot him a look, no doubt intended as a stern reproof of Julian’s returning humor, but the amused crinkling of his eyes bespoke otherwise. “Which leads me to believe Carnacki, if he is truly working with what he chooses to call magic, has little to no understanding of it and may be a danger to himself and others. In which case I am obligated to investigate.”

“You’re not obligated to do anything but report him,” said Julian, knowing all the while such an argument would prove useless against Ned’s iron character and its unforgiving definitions of right and wrong and one’s duty to assist the former against the latter.

“You’ll come with me, then?” said Ned, with an expression which made Julian suspect he’d read his mind.

Julian attempted a theatrical sigh, though his own chuckle rather spoilt the effect. “I can’t very well let you meddle with such powers alone.”

Ned’s grateful smile made the prospect seem much more attractive than otherwise.


	2. Chapter 2

Ned had ample opportunity to show Julian his gratitude when they returned to their lodgings that evening. The next morning, he sent his promised letter informing Dodgson he’d take the case. By the afternoon post, Ned received a more formal reply, confirming his and Julian’s invitation to dine at Lady Grey’s estate on Tuesday evening and remain until Friday, or such time as the worst of the haunting ceased, whichever came first.

Julian read the reply with raised brows but made no comment, which, Ned admitted to himself with some reluctance, vexed him more than any possible comment should have done.

The Tuesday train from London to Cumberland departed early enough in the morning to make Julian grumble, but not so early as to provide any real obstacle. Having spent the night together, as they had every night since the misadventure with the writing desk, they each packed a single bag, took the same omnibus to the station, boarded the second-class car together and sat across from each other in their booth. All perfectly normal, with no detail out of place in such a way as to cause any apprehension.

As the train chugged northward, however, Ned found he couldn’t keep his attention upon his sporting magazine. Julian, meanwhile, flipped through several morning papers whilst taking notes upon each with rapid efficiency in several identical-looking yet apparently distinct memorandum books, totally oblivious to the scenery flying past the train windows, much less Ned sharing a booth with him. Ned tried to watch the scenery himself, but found he couldn’t keep his mind on that, either. He tried reading again, this time searching for passages in the _De Occulta Philosophia_ relevant to ghosts, hauntings, or spirits of any kind, only to find spare remarks upon the near-impossibility of ghosts, and redirecting him to the much more probable and rational explanation of curses. Ned thought strange noises in the night a very mild curse, if it proved to be a curse after all, which he had to admit it most likely was. Still, it didn’t hold his attention, and he found himself curling the corners of the pages between his fingers until the paper felt as malleable as suede.

It wasn’t the thought of ghosts which troubled him—hard to be troubled by something he’d probably never encounter in his entire career—yet he couldn’t deny a growing dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought of a country holiday in a grand estate.

“Aha,” said Julian.

Ned, jolted out of his concerns, looked up to find Julian no longer flipping through newspapers but instead consulting a volume of peerage with a triumphant smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

After another fruitless moment spent waiting for Julian to elaborate on his discoveries, Ned cleared his throat and asked, “What have you found?”

Now it was Julian’s turn to look up startled, as if he’d quite forgotten Ned was there. He blinked. “Lady Grey is the widow of Sir Randolph Grey.”

“Knight?” Ned asked.

“Baronet,” Julian corrected.

Ned supposed he should feel grateful. “At least she’s not a duchess.”

Julian snorted. “Indeed, she is not.” He paused and glanced at Ned again, apparently alerted by Ned’s failure to join in his chortling. “Are you all right? You look a bit green.”

Ned wished he could blame it on the train. “Nerves, I suppose.”

Julian nodded as if he understood. “Truth told I’m not much more looking forward to the possibility of more non-conforming metaphysics.”

Funnily enough, Ned had managed to push that concern out of his mind. For a moment, he thought the best course of action might be to concur with Julian’s assessment, no matter how far off the mark, just so he wouldn’t have to speak of it aloud, but he knew that wouldn’t solve the issue, and so, in a low tone, he replied, “It’s not that.”

Julian raised an eyebrow. “Not sick, are you?”

“No,” said Ned. He glanced around the train car—nobody seemed to pay them any particular mind, ladies and gentlemen alike focused upon their own reading material or traveling companions, one young woman occupying herself with crochet—and leaned in a little to answer, “It’s just—I’ve never been to a proper estate.”

“Oh, is that all?” said Julian.

Ned’s ears burned, whether with shame or indignation, he couldn’t say. It was easy for Julian, who’d grown up on a country estate of his own—or rather, his great-uncle’s.

Julian, who’d been about to return to his reading, glanced at him again, and seemed to read something in his expression, for his own brow furrowed, and after a moment’s consideration, he said in far less dismissive tones, “I suppose it can be intimidating.”

Embarrassed, and wishing he’d not said anything at all, Ned made his own attempt at a lofty tone. “Just wish I’d thought to bring along some sort of etiquette manual is all.”

“Then you’d be worried about one of the footmen finding it in your luggage,” Julian said. “The only people who buy etiquette manuals are the nouveau-riche trying to marry up.”

“Or the common lot indulging in class envy,” Ned added, more stung than he liked to admit.

Julian frowned. “I said nothing of the sort.”

_You don’t have to_ , Ned thought, but saw no point in speaking aloud. He never thought he’d have a lover’s tiff in the midst of a crowded train carriage, even if another glance ‘round told him everyone on board remained determined to ignore them.

Perhaps realizing from Ned’s expression that his statements, whilst truthful, were in no way helpful, Julian added, “There’s not much to it, really. Firm handshake, yes-please and no-thank-you, start with the outside fork and work your way in. Basic stuff. If you really get into the weeds you can just follow my lead. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”

This last seemed so unlike Julian that Ned wondered for an instant if he was also feeling out-of-sorts, but his tone had sounded sincere, and Julian was hardly the sort of man to say something he didn’t mean. Ned relaxed a fraction. “Thanks.”

Julian’s smile flickered across his lips for only the briefest instant before he delved back into his reading, yet the sight of it warmed Ned’s heart like a blazing hearthfire.


	3. Chapter 3

The train had arrived in Cumberland just in time for dinner, which meant Lady Grey’s carriage had brought them from the station to her estate a little more than fashionably late. As it rolled to a halt in the gravel drive in front of the house, Julian noted how Ned’s eyes flew wide at the sight, and watched a hard swallow travel down his throat with perhaps a little more interest than he ought to have taken.

“It’s a bit much,” Julian said, tearing his attention away from his own desire to kiss a bruise just under Ned’s chiseled jawline.

Ned glanced at him. “You think so?”

“Bigger than my great-uncle’s,” Julian admitted.

To his surprise, this response seemed to relax Ned, his shoulders no longer hunched as the footman came around to open the carriage door and usher them inside. Julian supposed Ned appreciated not being the only one gawking up at the imposing edifice. If he must gawk, at least he would be in good company. To this end, Julian allowed his own gaze to linger on the oxidized copper fountain in the center of the drive, knowing Ned was watching him in turn. Ned’s gaze also prompted Julian to tip the footman a shilling, rather than pretending he didn’t know what all the footman’s hovering and coughing was hinting at. Tipping the staff was expected of a guest at a country estate, and Julian supposed if he must teach Ned by example, he ought to set one Ned wouldn’t feel ashamed to follow.

The house proved no less impressive within than without. An enormous pair of solid oaken doors creaked inward to reveal a foyer to rival the sanctuary of any cathedral—not entirely surprising, considering the house’s origins as a monastery—with a grand staircase sweeping across its expanse up to the second floor landing, still far below the vaulted ceiling. Two suits of armor flanked the staircase, fourteenth-century by Julian’s estimation given what he’d picked up over the years from his friends at the British Museum.

While the architecture certainly bespoke grandeur, Julian also noted that the banisters were in need of dusting, and the suits of armor lacked a certain gleam. Either Lady Grey had an incompetent staff, or one so small as to be unable to manage cleaning the front entryway before a party. He glanced to Ned to see how he took it. Ned, to his credit, kept his head about him enough not to gape slack-jawed, but his eyes looked considerably rounder than they did when he was at his ease.

They didn’t have long to gawk. The footmen led them through the foyer down a less-impressive corridor to a parlor already full of other guests.

“Gentlemen!” Dodgson, as delighted to see them as if they were old friends, scurried across the room to shake hands with them. “Allow me to introduce you—this is the Honorable Mr. Arkwright, our host—Arkwright, this is Mr. Mathey, the consulting metaphysician, and Mr. Lynes, the consulting detective.”

The word “detective” provoked a furrow in Arkwright’s brow, the only hint that he felt anything other than amiable towards his guests. Julian pegged him as a hearty country squire, the slight bow of his long legs bespeaking a fondness for fox-hunting, and the remainder of his burly frame bespeaking a fondness for such foods as would likely induce gout within the next decade or so. “Good evening.”

Dodgson continued almost before Ned or Julian could return their host’s greeting. “And this is Dr. Jessop—”

“Mere medical physician, I’m afraid,” Dr. Jessop said with a self-depreciating smile as he shook Ned and Julian’s hands. “Nothing so exciting as metaphysics.”

Julian chuckled along, with most of his attention focused on Dr. Jessop’s strong grip and how his smile reached his eyes. At least one member of Carnacki’s set seemed sincere—though Julian had enough experience with the criminal underbelly to know how well such traits might be faked.

“And this!” said Dodgson, coming at last to whom he evidently considered the piece de resistance amongst their company. “This is Mr. Carnacki!”

Julian drew up short. He’d conjured many a mental image of how the ghost-finder might appear. But the flesh-and-blood Carnacki defied all his expectations.

Mr. Thomas Carnacki looked far more military than mystical. His upright carriage—spine ramrod-straight, shoulders rolled back, chin up—put Julian in mind of an officer. His moustache, while full, had no such frills as wax or curls, being brushed straight down and trimmed absolutely level. His eyes were not hooded, nor did they possess a hypnotizing hue, but simply met Julian’s with a frank and indifferent gaze. His hand, as he clasped Julian’s, didn’t have the soft or fine-boned qualities associated with stage magicians, spiritualists, or other theatrical fellows; his grip strong, his knuckles weathered. And his voice, when he spoke, had no sing-song or whispering tone, but a low and clear, “How d’you do, gentlemen.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Ned replied with a winning smile. “Mr. Dodgson has told us of your considerable accomplishments.”

Dodgson himself, meanwhile, as Julian noted with some interest, gazed upon Carnacki like Hadrian upon Antinous—or, to use a more earthly comparison, like one who knew one’s affections weren’t returned and yet still couldn’t prevent such feelings from burning with the flame of eternal misplaced hope. It was almost enough to make Julian feel sorry for him.

Carnacki’s moustache twitched, indicating to Julian that he was not so immune to flattery as he might like to appear. “Indeed. I’ve read some of yours in the papers. A very interesting case, that writing desk. I understand it is sealed away in the Half House now. A shame—I should have liked to have a look at it myself.”

At the mention of the writing desk, Julian glanced to Ned, and saw his jaw clench, but only for a moment. Likely too brief for anyone save Julian himself to have noticed.

Any further comment was forestalled by the arrival of another member of the party, this time an elderly woman in a high-collared evening gown, wearing a garnet ring of such a size as to do the work of brass knuckles in a pinch, by Julian’s estimation. Her steely gaze swept over the gathering in silence, pausing first upon Ned, then upon Julian.

“My dear aunt,” said Arkwright, stepping forward to take her hand and bring it not quite up to his lips. She submitted to this token gesture in silence. He waved towards Ned and Julian. “This is Mr. Mathey and Mr. Lynes, those fellows Dodgson sent for.”

As he had waved his arm in their direction as a pair rather than as distinct individuals, Julian suspected he might have already forgotten which of them was which.

“Gentlemen,” Arkwright continued, “this is my aunt, Lady Grey.”

“How d’you do,” she spoke at last, not waiting for a reply before she returned to her nephew. “Folger says dinner is served, if your friends are ready.”

From her icy tones, Julian assessed dinner had been served for some time.

Arkwright merely smiled as he offered his arm to his aunt and glanced over his shoulder to invite the rest of the party to follow them down to dinner. Most formal dinner parties required the hostess to invite an equal number of men and women so they might alternate in seating, with each gentleman escorting a lady assigned by the hostess in accordance with the hierarchy of each guest’s respective rank, title, ancestry, income, and, if applicable, employment. Julian hadn’t attended that sort of party since he’d left his great-uncle’s household. That sort of thing was more in Lennox’s line. Tonight’s dinner couldn’t be properly formal, anyway, with Lady Grey the only woman and acting hostess to a troupe of men. As the gentlemen formed a loose queue without any direction—Julian and Ned taking up the rear, just behind Dodgson, who apparently knew his place in the pecking order amongst his friends—Julian couldn’t help the continued comparison to one of Lennox’s parties, where gentlemen escorted gentlemen with absolutely no shame and, indeed, a great deal of encouragement. If only they were at such a party now. Julian could take pride in going down to dinner arm-in-arm with Ned. At present, as they followed their hostess to the dining room, Julian privately resolved to see if he couldn’t persuade Ned to accompany him to one of Lennox’s dinners after all this was over.

Dinner was dreadful.

Julian had dined with beggars and bankers, with coppers and cracksmen, with aristocrats and artists—but never before had he suffered as he suffered now, dining with Carnacki and his friends. Only Julian’s consciousness of Ned by his side kept his tongue in check.

Lady Grey apparently didn’t think her guests worth her efforts at conversation. Arkwright, seated at her right hand, took it upon himself to rectify the issue by addressing Carnacki, seated at his aunt’s left.

“Carnacki, old man,” Arkwright said, “do tell us the story of your adventure with _The Whistling Room_.”

Julian, recognizing the title from what he’d skimmed in _Blackwood’s Bizarre Bazaar_ —one of the less-reputable journals cataloging queer reports that more respectable publications like _The Metaphysician_ rejected—perked up.

He needn’t have bothered. The story, from Carnacki’s own lips, was almost word-for-word what he’d already read. The most he could feel impressed by was Dodgson’s skill at faithful transcription. The rest, at best, bored him. At worst, it annoyed him. Particularly Carnacki’s habit of punctuating every development and detail with some variation on, “Can you possibly understand what it is I am attempting to convey?” Despite the obvious rhetorical nature of such inquiries, Julian had to bite his tongue to keep from replying. If he did understand what Carnacki meant when he spoke of “psychical sensations” and “Aeiirii and Saiitii manifestations”, he would consider himself irrevocably insane and commit himself to Bedlam. He found Carnacki’s storytelling as compelling as Dodgson’s prose, which was to say, not at all. Dodgson, on the other hand, hung on to Carnacki’s every word, his eyes shining like a child hearing a fairytale for the first time. Yet even the conclusion of the tale, with Carnacki throwing himself through a window to escape some still-unknown malevolent force, failed to rouse any positive emotion in Julian other than relief that the story was finally ending.

“According to legend,” Carnacki said, in the same matter-of-fact monotone he’d used throughout, “in that very room, a court jester was executed by burning in the fireplace, and whistled as he roasted to death.”

Julian opened his mouth with a half-formed question about how, exactly, the burning of the apparently-chipper court jester had transformed him into a spirit so powerful and so vengeful as to force Carnacki to defenestrate himself, then caught the warning look in Ned’s eye and clamped his jaw shut.

“I do hope,” said Dodgson, “our current predicament may not prove so alarming as _The Whistling Room_ —or worse still, _The Horse of the Invisible_.”

Julian blinked at him, and then echoed, in tones of flat disbelief, “ _The Horse of the Invisible_.”

“Have you not read Dodgson’s account?” Carnacki replied mildly.

“Is it anything like _The Thing Invisible_?” Julian asked—a little too dry, as the sharp jab of Ned’s shoe in his shin reminded him.

“There are some commonalities,” Carnacki admitted with a stern glance at Dodgson, as if to chide him for attributing such similar titles to two distinct cases. Dodgson’s face fell. Carnacki continued. “However, _The Thing Invisible_ resolved without any casualties, whilst _The Horse Invisible_ , regrettably, concluded with a death. As such, I am in agreement with you, Dodgson, in my wish that our current case may bear greater resemblance to the former rather than the latter.”

The news that Carnacki agreed with him apparently did much to cheer Dodgson, who looked up with a faint smile and returned to his plate with renewed appetite.

Lady Grey spoke up at last, her tremulous voice wavering down to the opposite end of the table where Julian and Ned sat with Dodgson. “Mr. Mathey—Mr. Lynes—Have you much experience with ghosts?”

“Not yet, your ladyship,” Ned replied.

Lady Grey appeared disappointed to the point of disdain in his response. “I suppose Mr. Dodgson hopes you will prove useful to us in other ways. Perhaps Mr. Carnacki may educate you in the ways of the supernatural.”

It shouldn’t have surprised Julian that Lady Grey should put more faith in her nephew’s charlatan friend than in Ned. Still, as he inevitably considered just how often and how far Ned had proved his talent for metaphysics, and what great risks he had taken to collar murderers and ensnare non-conforming metaphysical experiments gone horribly awry…

“I’m happy to instruct Mr. Mathey in how best to assist my work,” said Carnacki. “If he can possibly understand what I try to convey.”

The toe of Ned’s shoe tapped Julian’s shin, and only then did Julian realize he’d gripped his silver fish-fork as if he meant to impale one of the other guests with it.

Julian put his fork down flat upon the table and cleared his throat, turning to the head of the table where their hostess sat. “Lady Grey, is there any history of a curse upon your household?”

All the best families had curses. Yet from the look which flashed between Lady Grey and Arkwright, Julian supposed they found it difficult to maintain their expectations of hospitality in the face of such audacity. Indeed, Julian half-expected to feel Ned’s kick once more. But before anyone else could respond, Carnacki cut in.

“I’m afraid I must ask the same question. There are a few finer points I should like to go over before I begin my assessment of the haunting.”

While Lady Grey might refuse Julian out of hand, she appeared far more willing to entertain Carnacki’s enquiry. She inclined her head ever so slightly. “I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Mr. Carnacki. We have no curses upon our household or bloodline.”

“And yet,” Carnacki said before Julian could form his next question, “there is a history of apparitions. Particularly of monks wandering the halls—though such apparitions have remained silent until recently.”

Lady Grey admitted this was true.

“When did this change occur?” Julian asked, determined to wrest control of the case back from Carnacki.

“A fortnight past,” said Lady Grey.

“Under the full moon,” Carnacki intoned as if to himself.

Julian ignored him. “What noise have the monks made?”

“It is not the monks, Mr. Mathey,” Lady Grey replied, revealing she likewise hadn’t bothered to distinguish between Julian or Ned when her nephew had introduced them as a pair. “The monks all took a vow of silence in life, and have kept it in death. What creature,” she said, pursing her lips, “causes the rattling of chains up and down the stairs and corridors in the middle of the night, I cannot fathom.”

Evidently she took offense at the change. Julian opened his mouth to continue his line of questioning.

Ned spoke first. “With your permission, my lady, I should like to conduct a metaphysical examination of the house, to see if perhaps some more recent curse or malediction may have caused this disturbance.”

Ned’s pleasing and polite nature, all the more charming for its contrast against Julian’s blunt interrogation, proved far more successful in thawing Lady Grey’s icy demeanor. Her face relaxed from its scowl as she gave him a long, appraising look, and finally replied, “You may.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Ned’s smile shone like starlight in the stormy atmosphere of the dining room. “Perhaps my colleague could conduct a similar investigation amongst your staff? It would be useful for us to interview them and discover what they may have witnessed of the phenomenon.”

The ensuing silence was longer and more pronounced than the first, yet at length, Lady Grey relented. “If you must.”

“Again, I thank you,” said Ned.

Lady Grey looked past him. “If Mr. Carnacki will be so kind as to guide you in your endeavors.”

“Certainly,” said Carnacki.

Julian bit his tongue and reached for his wineglass.

When dessert ended, the footmen cleared the table, brushing crumbs into silver trays and bearing them off with pristine efficiency. Then Lady Grey rose from her seat at the head of the table.

“Forgive me, gentlemen,” she said with the air of one who did not believe she required forgiveness. “We keep early hours in the country. I trust my nephew may look after you in my stead.”

Murmurs of general assent rose to meet her declaration. She acknowledged them with a nod and departed.

In her absence, a footman brought forth a bottle of port and Arkwright dispensed it to his guests. Julian sipped it dutifully at first, then, discovering it to be a rather fine vintage, with more enthusiasm—though not with so much enthusiasm as to render him unable to conduct his investigation afterwards.

A late country dinner was still quite early by London standards. By the time Arkwright offered second helpings, it was only half-past eight.

Julian shook his head as Arkwright tipped the bottle in his direction. “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Arkwright, I believe my partner and I would like to get on with our investigation.”

“I quite agree,” said Carnacki before either Ned or Arkwright could comment. “I should like to set up the electric pentacle before the witching hour.”

“I’m eager to see it done,” said Ned, apparently able to both hear and respond to such a sentence with a straight face.

Julian, not trusting himself to do the same, downed the last of his port before adding, “I’ll go down to the kitchens, then, whilst you and Mr. Carnacki go about your business.”

Arkwright balked. “I believe my aunt gave her permission whilst under the impression that you worked as a pair.”

“Indeed, we do,” Ned said easily. “We’ll be comparing our notes together after we make our discrete investigations. But it hardly seems efficient for Mr. Lynes to follow me while I perform my metaphysical examination, only to have me shadow him in turn while he interviews the staff.”

“In that case,” Arkwright declared after a moment’s consideration, “I suppose I had better go along with your partner while you assist Carnacki.”

Again, the suggestion that Ned would be little more than an apprentice to Carnacki’s presumed genius. It bothered Julian as much or more than the prospect of Arkwright dogging his heels. He’d expected to meet resistance interviewing the staff as it was, being a stranger to the household. But a stranger asking questions whilst the master of the house hovered just over his shoulder… The investigation was over before it had even begun.

Ned no doubt shared Julian’s feelings on the matter, though he disguised it better, putting on the amicable smile that served him so well in dealing with landladies and housekeepers. “That will do nicely.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ned felt he’d done well enough at dinner, all things considered. Watching Julian had at least enabled him to consistently choose the correct fork for each course. Following Julian in conversation, on the other hand, proved dicier. It’d been all Ned could do to keep him in line. Yes, Carnacki’s stories sounded frankly ridiculous, and his habit of repeating “How can you possibly understand me?” at regular intervals grated on one’s nerves, but for the moment, they needed to remain in his good books, and in those of their hosts, who evidently respected the man. Surely Julian understood that.

Especially after dinner, when Arkwright announced his intentions to cripple Julian’s half of the investigation.

The look Julian exchanged with Ned at that moment spoke volumes, but, to Ned’s great relief, Julian had accepted the terms with a forced smile and allowed Arkwright to lead him off downstairs to what would doubtless prove a completely ineffectual interrogation of the staff. Or perhaps not. Ned had enough confidence in Julian’s detective abilities to hope that he might yet pull some useful kernel of information from the servants, even under the watchful eye of their master.

“And so we are four,” Carnacki murmured, drawing Ned’s attention away from Julian’s departure.

Dodgson, all but bubbling over with excitement, turned to address his other friend. “You’re coming, Jessop, aren’t you?”

Dr. Jessop, who’d remained quiet throughout the meal, spoke up at last with a warm chuckle. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To observe Carnacki at work? Of course I’ll come along.”

“If I may be so bold as to make a proposition, Mr. Mathey,” Carnacki began.

Ned, belatedly realizing Carnacki did not intend the same meaning as such a sentence would carry at Jacob’s, nodded. “By all means.”

“We shall each gather our respective materials,” said Carnacki, “and meet in the foyer in a quarter-hour’s time.”

A sensible enough plan. Ned agreed with a nod and set out alone to accomplish his end of it.

It was the work of a moment to go up to the guest bedroom where a footman had stashed his luggage and retrieve his metaphysician’s case. Returning to the foyer proved more difficult, Ned getting himself turned around more than once in the process, but at length he found the corridor leading to the grand staircase and from thence descended not too long after the appointed time to meet Carnacki, Dodgson, and Dr. Jessop already gathered in the foyer.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Mathey,” Carnacki intoned.

Ned tried to take him at his word. “Shall we begin?”

A convenient end-table had space enough for both men to set out their kits side-by-side. Ned had his seeking clock, a coarse bundle of silk, his memorandum-book, a lead pencil, and his dog-eared edition of the _De Occulta Philosophia_. He wished he’d brought a copy of _Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus_ or the _Grimorium Verum_ , but the Commons library would never allow such valuable tomes to leave the City, much less go on a country jaunt to a supposedly-haunted manor in the company of a gentleman like Carnacki. But at present, he only required his wand, which he drew out to hold loose in his hand as he stole a glance over at his rival.

Carnacki had a bag very much like Ned’s own metaphysician’s case, enough so that Ned suspected he’d purchased one intended for a metaphysician and bent it to his purpose. But the items he produced from it were nothing like what Ned would expect from a fellow metaphysician—at least, not a modern one. A measuring tape; a whisk of some dried herb, several bulbs of garlic; a stick of chalk; a loaf of bread; a box camera; five candles; five jars of some clear liquid, probably water, but Ned didn’t feel comfortable making assumptions where Carnacki was concerned; and a tangled web of wiring and vaccuum tubes. Ned took a closer look at the jars, each with a metal spike through its lid. Belatedly he recognized the construction as a Leyden jar—or, in the common parlance, an electrical battery.

“The electric pentacle,” Dodgson breathed, giving voice to Ned’s private conclusion.

Carnacki said nothing to the contrary. Indeed, he said nothing at all, merely methodically setting out his tools in silence. Only when he’d untangled the wiring and laid down the vaccuum tubes did he raise his head, and then only to glance over Ned’s bag in turn.

“Mr. Carnacki,” said Ned. “Is there anything metaphysical in your electric pentacle?”

The combination of metaphysics and electricity, to Ned’s knowledge, was as of yet only a matter of theoretical discussion, occasionally debated by academics in the columns of _The Metaphysician_. But perhaps Carnacki had been experimenting. It would be a very new and very dangerous form of non-conforming metaphysics, to be sure.

“Not by design,” said Carnacki.

“In that case…” Ned held up his wand with a smile. “If I may?”

Carnacki raised an eyebrow but stepped back, sweeping an inviting arm across his array of equipment. “By all means, Mr. Mathey.”

Ned sketched a quick cantrip to reveal enchantment. At best, it would show a flicker of light or give the chime of a bell. At worst, it might all explode. Or implode. Or turn the whole house inside-out.

But as the last stroke of Ned’s wand slipped into place, and he felt the hook of enchantment take hold behind his navel, he waited for the result…

Only to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel nothing at all.

At least, nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing metaphysical. He waited a moment longer, then sketched out a different grammatical construction to the same purpose.

Still nothing.

It appeared that whatever Carnacki’s method was, it wasn’t metaphysical. Not even non-conforming metaphysics, which Ned had to admit came as a great relief. 

Of course, it still didn’t settle the question of the truth of Carnacki’s claims. Ned recalled the case of the Fox sisters and their infamous seances, where they’d produced so-called “spirit knocks” by cracking the knuckles of their toes to produce rapping sounds. Since knuckle-cracking was hardly hocus, they defied all metaphysical means to discover how it was done, and it required not only their confession but also an attending physician to confirm it. Which only went to show one need not use metaphysics to hoax someone; while Ned had proved as far as he could that not a single aspect of Carnacki’s kit was metaphysical, he could still be a charlatan, as Julian suspected.

“Do you find it to your satisfaction, Mr. Mathey?” asked Carnacki.

Ned shot a quick look at Dodgson, who stood just over Carnacki’s shoulder. Dodgson’s eyes bulged with curiosity and unspoken questions. Ned hoped to answer most of them in his reply: “Quite so, Mr. Carnacki.”

Carnacki’s moustache twitched in what might have been a smile. “Then let us begin.”

With that, Carnacki picked up his piece of chalk, strode to the center of the foyer, knelt down on the floorboards, and began to draw.

Ned had heard such rituals described by theoretical metaphysicians and archaeologists, but had never before witnessed one in the flesh. Seeing Carnacki scribing upon the floor with chalk reminded him more than a little of the description given of the sex magic done to create the corrupted Hand of Glory. He kept his wand at the ready, clenched perhaps a little more tightly than strictly necessary under the circumstances.

Having performed his tests upon Carnacki’s equipment, there remained very little for him to do but bear witness. Certainly no further metaphysical investigation could take place on his end. In the Nevett case, he’d had the supposedly-cursed silver upon which to focus his investigation. But Lady Grey had no such convenient scapegoat for her own nocturnal phenomena. Indeed, she claimed not to be cursed at all. In theory, Ned could perform the standard series for curse detection upon the house as a whole, but it would require an enormous expenditure of energy, and likely not accomplish anything beyond rending him insensible for the next twelve-to-forty-eight hours—hardly useful for the purposes of his current investigation. He glanced about the foyer, taking in Carnacki on the floor with Dodgson standing directly over him and Dr. Jessop observing from a further distance, and beyond, to the suits of armor flanking the staircase.

“How long,” Ned asked, to whichever of the men chose to hear him, “has the armor stood at the base of the stair?”

Ned expected Dr. Jessop to answer, he seeming the least-involved in Carnacki’s work at the moment, but to his surprise, Dodgson turned around with an expression of delight which reminded Ned of a schoolboy determined to become teacher’s pet.

“Ages,” said Dodgson. “They’ve been in the family for generations; supposedly worn by the late Sir Randolph’s ancestors. Arkwright has a most amusing anecdote about the trouble he got up to as a boy trying to wriggle his way inside one for a game of hide-and-seek—”

“Dodgson,” said Carnacki. “Come here. I need you.”

Dodgson jolted upright and scurried back to his friend.

Ned followed and found Carnacki had finished his chalk circle. The marks surrounding its rim might pass for runes or sigils to the layman, but to Ned’s eyes, they appeared as incomprehensible scrawls.

“In accordance with the ritual laid out in the Sigsand Manuscript,” Carnacki said matter-of-factly, as if everyone were familiar with the text.

Except Ned had never heard of it.

He dearly hoped Carnacki had invented it out of whole cloth. Antiquarian metaphysics were best left studied in the abstract, if at all. One need only glimpse the wedjat table kept under rune and key in the British Museum to know that much.

Perhaps reading something of Ned’s confusion in his face, Carnacki elaborated. “A document dating to the 14th century, detailing several protective rituals and the malevolent entities they are designed to defend against.”

“I’m told the armor is of the same vintage,” Ned said.

If Carnacki picked up on even a hint of levity, forced or otherwise, it made no impression upon his forbiddingly stoic features.

Ned gave the matter up. “Does the Sigsand Manuscript identify anything that rattles chains?”

“An Ab-Natural,” Carnacki intoned, “often makes itself known with auditory phenomena in addition to visions and more physical manifestations.”

“I see,” Ned replied, as if every licensed metaphysician studied Ab-Naturals at Oxford. He wondered what Julian would make of the made-up word; he’d laugh, no doubt, and leave it to Ned to worry about the implications.

Carnacki turned back to his supplies. Ned took the opportunity to sketch a few surreptitious sigils over the circle with his wand. It provoked no reaction whatsoever, for which he gave silent thanks.

Next Carnacki brought out his Leyden jars, setting them down all around the circumference of the chalk circle, each jar equidistant from its neighbor. Then he brought out the vacuum tubes and, with their wires, traced a star upon the floorboards, using the Leyden jars as points.

Ned glanced at the two other gentlemen to see what they made of this. Dr. Jessop appeared mildly bemused. Dodgson was enraptured.

“And now…” Carnacki murmured as if to himself.

He brought the points of the wires to the spikes of the Leyden jars. A few sparks flew—then the whole pentacle lit up with an eerie blue glow, faint as candlelight, not so much flickering as pulsing, like the beating of an ancient heart. A noise like the humming of a beehive rose in the foyer, echoing off the distant rafters, the only sound apart from Dodgson’s gentle gasp.

Again Ned brought out his wand, sketching out the sigils to detect metaphysical interference, and again, he could only conclude that the electric pentacle contained no enchantment whatsoever.

“What? Is it the fabled thing at last?”

The booming voice shattered the reverent hush brought on by the lighting of the electric pentacle. The four men looked up as one to its point of origin, the top of the grand staircase, where it met the second-floor landing. Arkwright stood poised just before the staircase, staring down at the mess they’d made of his aunt’s foyer. With relief, Ned spotted Julian just over the squire’s massive shoulder.

“It is!” Dodgson called up to him, unmistakable glee in his voice. “The electric pentacle!”

Arkwright frowned down at it, evidently unimpressed. “And what does all this accomplish?”

Ned had to admit he wondered the same thing himself.

“It is a circle of protection,” Carnacki explained, nothing in his matter-of-fact tone suggesting he took offense at his friend’s skepticism. “It should prevent any further malevolent forces from entering this house, so long as it remains lit, and shall protect me as I wait to witness whatever lurks in the shadows of these hallowed halls.”

“You’re spending the night in the foyer?” said Arkwright.

“Lady Grey did say the rattling chains dragged up and down the stairs,” Julian noted. Ned withheld a fond smile.

Arkwright glanced at him with a look suggesting he’d quite forgotten he was there, then shook it off to address Carnacki once more. “You sure you’re up to it, old sport?”

“Positive,” Carnacki declared.

Arkwright shook his head. “Very well. I’ll leave you to it.”

“You’re not staying to watch?” Dodgson asked, aghast.

Arkwright yawned, perhaps a touch theatrically. “Afraid not. I trust Carnacki will tell us all about it in the morning. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

So saying, he took himself away down one of the countless corridors in the labyrinthine mansion.

“Think I’ll turn in, too,” said Dr. Jessop, despite the abject shock writ large upon Dodgson’s features. “I expect whatever happens will make enough noise to wake me. See you in the morning, Carnacki, Dodgson. Mr. Mathey,” he added, turning belatedly to Ned.

Ned, who’d turned his gaze upward to watch Julian’s descent down the grand staircase, took a moment to realize the doctor had addressed him. “Yes—goodnight. Although, before you go, I wonder if I might have a word?”

Julian paused halfway down the stairs. Dr. Jessop seemed likewise surprised by the request, though he recovered quickly, acquiescing with a nod and following Ned to a sitting room just off the foyer. From the doorway, Ned shot a final look at Julian, one which he hoped would imply he’d only be a moment.

“Dr. Jessop,” Ned said, speaking on impulse. “You are a consulting physician?”

“A surgeon,” Dr. Jessop corrected gently, smiling as he did so.

All the better, from Ned’s perspective. “I trust I do not stray far from the mark if I assume you are a practical man.”

“Indeed,” said Dr. Jessop, appearing more amused than otherwise, much to Ned’s relief.

“As such,” Ned continued, “I must ask: do you believe the supernatural tales of your friend Mr. Carnacki?”

He’d expected the question might not go over well, and indeed, it appeared to give Dr. Jessop pause. The surgeon’s smile disappeared, and his brow furrowed in thought.

“I cannot say much for the supernatural,” Dr. Jessop said at last. “But I can tell you this. Whatever else Carnacki may fabricate, he did actually defenestrate himself to escape what he believed to be a supernatural attack. I know this for certain. He came to me to treat the resulting injuries. Cracked ribs, contusions, lacerations—including a shard of glass within an eighth of an inch of his carotid artery. Not the sort of injuries to result from hesitation or play-acting.”

Ned concurred with a nod. Dr. Jessop returned the gesture and departed, passing Julian in his ascent up the grand staircase. Julian waited for him to go by before completing his descent, raising an eyebrow at the electric pentacle as he alighted upon the ground floor.

“You’re welcome to stay, Mr. Lynes,” said Carnacki, apparently reading the skepticism in Julian’s expression without raising his head from his runes.

“I just might,” Julian replied with a wry smile. “But first I must consult with my partner. The guest room?”

This last suggestion he directed towards Ned.

Ned quite agreed with it; the rooms Lady Grey’s housekeeper had assigned to them were the closest thing they could have to privacy in the mansion. “Yours or mine?”

“Yours, I think,” said Julian. “Lead on.”

Ned did so, picking up his metaphysician’s case from the end-table in the foyer and retracing the winding path he’d taken to retrieve it in the first place. Julian followed in comfortable silence, speaking only when Ned stopped in front of his appointed door to fumble with the ancient skeleton key the footman had dropped into his palm upon their arrival.

“Mine’s just across the way,” Julian observed. “Convenient.”

“Coincidence, most like,” Ned replied, his attention more on the lock than the conversation.

“Would you still consider it coincidence if I told you Carnacki is next door?”

Ned looked up, curious, and Julian jerked his chin towards the door at the very end of the hall, a mere stone’s throw away from them.

“Seems a moot point,” Ned concluded, “since he’s spending the night downstairs.”

“Fair,” Julian replied.

Ned got the door open at last, and they slipped inside. The moment the door closed behind them, Julian had his wand out, sketching sigils to seal the room from outside listeners. Neat work, and well-practiced, Ned observed, waiting until he’d finished to speak.

“How’d it go?” Ned asked, although he could already tell from the thin line of Julian’s mouth and the hunch of his shoulders as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

“Useless,” Julian declared. “Worse than useless, with Arkwright hovering over my shoulder like some kind of malevolent guardian angel. None of the staff could look me in the eye, and none said anything beyond ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and endless assertions that they’ve never seen or heard anything of any kind in all their years of service.”

“Shame, that,” Ned said, trying to keep his excitement at his own discoveries muted.

Evidently he failed, for Julian cocked a curious eyebrow at him. “Go on, then, what did you find?”

“The electric pentacle is just that: electric. There’s nothing magic whatsoever in anything Carnacki has done here tonight.”

Julian let out a low sigh through pursed lips. “I won’t deny that’s a relief.”

Ned quite agreed.

“And technically,” Julian went on, “it means we’ve accomplished what Dodgson hired us on to do.” He shot a sidelong glance at Ned.

Ned chuckled. “You want to go home so soon?”

Julian snorted. “Hardly. Not until we’ve sorted out this haunting business. D’you think Carnacki will stay awake long enough to witness anything? Can’t be comfortable, down there on the floorboards. It was already chilled when we passed through.”

“You’re welcome to join him.”

“I just might.” Julian stepped closer. “Though I’ve half a mind to join you here.”

Ned raised his brows. “Join with me, you mean.”

“You always were a craftsman when it came to grammatical instruction.”

Julian leaned in to kiss him. Ned let him, even opened his lips to deepen it, but when they broke off, he pulled back with a disapproving look regardless.

“We can’t,” Ned said. “Not here.”

Julian didn’t bother disguising his disappointment. “’Spose not. Still, though, I’d very much like to—”

He cut himself off, jerking his head towards the door.

Ned had heard it, too. An echoing clanging sound, far-off, it seemed, yet closer and closer with every clang.

“What the Devil?” Julian muttered.

“If it’s a rattling chain,” said Ned, “I’ll eat my hat.”

Julian shot a glance at Ned, and at his nod, grasped the doorknob and turned it.


	5. Chapter 5

Julian stepped into the hall, Ned close on his heels. The corridor loomed before them, its deep shadows lit only intermittently by flickering candle-flame. There were enough sconces to set the whole length of it into a blaze of light, but for reasons of economy—by Julian’s guess—only every fifth sconce held a lit candle. At the end of the hall, where it became the upper landing of the grand staircase in the foyer, one could just see the eerie blue glow of the electric pentacle. By what little illumination they had, the hallway appeared empty.

Yet the clanging clamor continued.

At first, it sounded like pots and pans, some impish child having emptied the kitchen of its iron and turned it into improvised instruments. As the noise continued, however, Julian realized it had a rhythm. Regular as clockwork, there came a solid thump, like an ill-tuned gong, followed by clattering, fading off until the next thump.

“Footsteps?” Ned whispered.

Julian glanced over his shoulder to find Ned in a crouch which would’ve served him well on the rugby pitch, with his wand at the ready. He realized he held his own wand clenched in his fist at level with his chest, as if it were a walking stick raised like a club.

More footsteps sounded further off—the rapid-fire thud of someone running up a staircase. Two shadowy figures appeared shortly thereafter, one upright and military in its carriage, the other jittery and portly. Carnacki and Dodgson, apparently having abandoned the supposed safety of the electric pentacle to investigate the sudden commotion upstairs.

The clanging footsteps drew closer. Julian thought he saw something flickering in the air near one of the candlelit sconces—a metallic sheen limning the edge of something huge and hulking. Then it vanished into shadows once again, the footsteps coming inexorably nearer and nearer.

“Did you see that?” Julian hissed at Ned.

“Yes,” Ned replied.

Before he could say more, Carnacki, at the other end of the hall, raised a box to his face.

Lightning flashed in the hallway. It blinded Julian, and likely everyone else, judging by Dodgson’s distant yelp of alarm.

But just before his vision went white, he saw the shimmering silhouette of a knight in armor.

Beyond that, he saw nothing, the after-image burned into his retina—temporarily, he hoped—floating in his vision no matter how he blinked and squinted. He swore, and wished Ned would do the same, so he might at least know where he was.

Then the clanging filled his ears—faster and louder than before, as if the invisible armor were charging straight at him.

Julian forced his stinging eyes open once again, and glimpsed the shimmering silhouette. The knight had both arms over his head, some sort of weapon in hand, ready to bring down upon him.

A crushing blow struck Julian in the side, knocking the wind out of him. Then came a sickening crunching sound, and a bitten-off cry of pain. Not his own. A great weight fell atop him, pinning him to the ground beneath its warm bulk. A body. The clanging ceased. The sparks cleared from his vision, and he realized the great weight atop him was—

“Ned,” Julian said—or wheezed, rather, his lungs not quite up to the task. He tried again. “Ned, get up!”

He could hear the panic in his own voice, panic borne not only of his own inability to gather breath, but of the fact that he couldn’t see Ned’s face, nor could he hear any response.

Julian didn’t have the strength to shove Ned off him outright—Ned was far too well-muscled for that, and normally Julian appreciated his athletic build, but not now, not when he refused to respond to Julian’s increasingly desperate calls and just laid atop him like a dead weight—

An unfortunate phrase. It brought a cold wave of dread to Julian’s veins. He put it out of his mind, instead focusing on his efforts to wriggle out from under Ned’s bulk. He managed it in what was probably a matter of seconds, but felt like hours, with no response, no word, not so much as a breath from—

Julian pulled himself up to his knees and groped for Ned, found a shoulder, turned him over towards the still-flickering candlelight.

Ned’s eyes were shut. Streaks of something dark stained his face. And the shoulder not in Julian’s hand…

Julian stared at the wound, at the enormous void in Ned’s frame, at the white shards of bone jutting out of the pulpy black mass where Ned’s shoulder used to be.

He heard shouting from behind him—Dodgson, from the timbre of it—footsteps approaching—a hand on his own shoulder—he batted it away—

“Dodgson,” came Carnacki’s voice, low and brusque. “Fetch Jessop.”

Dodgson gulped audibly. Julian heard his footsteps scampering away. He felt all-too-aware of Carnacki’s continued presence directly behind him. The presence which prevented him from pulling Ned into his lap and cupping his face in his hands and—

Julian shook off unspeakable suppositions and reached for Ned’s throat. Two fingers pressed in the hollow just under his jaw found a pulse, stronger than he’d dared hope. His joy at finding it proved fleeting; a pulse so strong doubtless caused the growing crimson stain across the remnants of Ned’s jacket, pooling onto the carpet of the hallway floor below.

“I believe I have a photograph of the attacker,” Carnacki said.

That had been the flash. Not lightning, after all. The flash had blinded Julian, had provoked the knight to attack, had caused Ned to tackle Julian to get him out of the way, and to take the blow for himself.

Julian could have killed Carnacki.


	6. Chapter 6

“See, Mr. Lynes, he’s coming ‘round now.”

It took Ned a moment to place the voice as belonging to his very recent acquaintance, Dr. Jessop. It took another moment longer before his vision cleared, and the blurry figures moving overhead came into focus. He was lying down in a bed, and Dr. Jessop stood over him, with Julian swiftly moving in to hover over the surgeon’s shoulder, very much as if he’d been furiously pacing, only to turn on his heel at the surgeon’s word and come straight to Ned’s bedside.

Ned forced his jaw open, his tongue feeling thick as he formed the words. “What happened?”

“We don’t know,” Julian replied with a frankness Ned appreciated. There was a wild white rim around his eyes, granting further intensity to his already-perceptive gaze, and his mouth pressed in a firm line. Worried, that was it—he looked all drawn up with worry, and it was a look Ned found he disliked to find upon Julian’s face.

“You’ve suffered blunt force trauma to your right shoulder,” said Dr. Jessop, as matter-of-factly as if he were speaking to nurse. “Resulting in crushing injury and haemorrhage. Lie still for just a moment longer…”

As Dr. Jessop spoke, he brought up a silver-capped wand not unlike Ned’s own and traced it through a series of sharp, swift strokes. Ned thought he recognized a mending cantrip not entirely unlike one Miss Frost had demonstrated, originally intended to darn holes ripped in clothing.

At the instant Dr. Jessop finished his cantrip, pain burst in Ned’s shoulder like flame blooming from an explosion. It lasted but an instant, fading to a dull throbbing ache that trickled pins-and-needles down the length of his arm to his fingertips.

“Should look much better in a few hours,” Dr. Jessop concluded cheerfully. “In the meantime, we’ve linen and morphine.”

So saying, he exchanged his wand for needle and bottle. Julian watched him with undisguised suspicion.

“Light,” Ned said.

“Steady, old man,” said Julian, stepping forward to touch Ned’s uninjured hand. His fingertips ghosted over Ned’s knuckles; Ned wished he’d clasp his hand outright.

“It’s a cantrip of light,” Ned said. “It’s not absorbing light—that would be shadow—so it must be a reflection of light—no, scattering. It’s scattering light. That’s why it seems to flicker in and out of visibility.”

“Just so,” Dr. Jessop said soothingly, and Ned felt the prick of the needle in the crook of his uninjured arm.

A wave washed over his consciousness, but rather than drowning him it seemed to lift him up, up, up on its rising tide, and lay him down gentle in a warm current, floating, skimming the surface of his own thoughts, whatever cares he might have had in mind before muffled as if his ears were underwater. Yet one single thought remained, and though he couldn’t remember why, it felt imperative to tell Julian.

“Light,” Ned insisted, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

Julian clasped his hand at last, clenching his fingers in a firm grip. “I understand.”

Ned, already drifting off into semi-consciousness, could only trust he spoke true.


	7. Chapter 7

A crushing blow, according to the surgeon, and upon seeing the resulting wound, Julian had to concur. He held Ned’s hand in a similarly crushing grip as he watched his eyes roll back into his head and his eyelids flutter shut soon after.

“He should heal up well enough to travel in a few days,” Dr. Jessop said. “But he ought not to be moved before then.”

Julian accepted this prognosis in silence, his jaw clenched to keep the writhing turmoil of his heart at bay. Nevermind that Ned had nearly died for his sake not even ten minutes past—he would heal, and soon. Better to focus upon that, for now, and not upon the terror of watching Ned crumple before his eyes, laid low by something as-of-yet unknown and very nearly unseen.

“I believe the attack was intended as a distraction, to force me out of the protection of the electric pentacle.”

Carnacki’s voice was perhaps the least-welcome sound that could have possibly reached Julian’s ears in that moment. He grit his teeth and turned to see Carnacki in the doorway, standing in his military way as if he had every right to come into Ned’s makeshift sickroom.

“Upon my return to the foyer,” Carnacki continued despite no one asking him for further details, “I discovered the pentacle destroyed.”

“Can’t you re-draw it?” Dr. Jessop asked mildly, not looking up from his patient as he dressed the wound.

“I very well might,” said Carnacki, “but one of the jars is smashed, and the pentacle cannot be completed with merely four.”

Privately, Julian wondered if the materials for one’s enchantment were so fragile as a glass jar, and the enchantment itself so precise as to require exactly five such jars, why one would not bring at least a single spare jar in the event of catastrophe.

“I specifically requested Dodgson remain in the pentacle whilst I went upstairs to investigate the mysterious cacophony,” Carnacki said, a hint of impatience leaking into his perfunctory tone for the first time. “However, he did not remain, but followed me instead. And thus, disaster.”

Dr. Jessop tutted. “Shame, that.”

“May I see it?” Julian forced out, willing himself not to sound even half as frustrated as he felt. A visit to view the supposed irreparable damage done to his utterly pretend magical circle would at least get Carnacki away from Ned.

Carnacki blinked at him. “If you like. It’s just downstairs.”

Julian waited, but Carnacki made no motion towards the door. Evidently he expected Julian to go out on his own. And having specifically asked to see the damned circle, Julian could hardly balk now.

“What about your photograph?” Julian tried again.

“Ah, yes,” said Carnacki, a note of self-satisfaction in his voice. “I am in eagerness to develop it—but of course, there’s nothing to be done for it at the moment. I don’t believe Lady Grey has a darkroom at the ready for me, and one can hardly expect her household to provide one at this late hour.”

Foiled again. Julian forcibly relaxed his clenched fist.

Carnacki glanced over Ned with a perfunctory air which did nothing to soothe Julian’s mounting wrath. “I wish I had the materials to erect the electric pentacle once again in this very room. I hate to leave Mr. Mathey quite without supernatural defense.”

“We’ll manage,” said Dr. Jessop, neatly tying off the bandage around Ned’s shoulder.

“I shall have to perform the Saaamaaa Ritual,” Carnacki murmured.

“Not in here, you won’t,” Julian said before he could stop himself.

Both Carnacki and Dr. Jessop turned to look at him.

“Carnacki!” came a shout from the hallway, saving Julian from further offending his fellow guests. A moment later Arkwright appeared on the threshold. He cast a bewildered look over Carnacki, the doctor, the unconscious patient, and Julian himself, before apparently deciding none of it mattered and barreling on with whatever he’d come in to say in the first place. “What’s all the commotion? The servants are all in a confusion. My aunt’s woken up as well.”

He offered this last as a sort of crown jewel of outrage, the absolute final straw, requiring his personal presence in the sickroom to rectify.

“Something attacked Mr. Mathey,” Julian said, his voice dull with restraint. Better, he thought, that he should explain the situation himself, rather than give Carnacki the chance to say something still more ridiculous.

“An Ab-Natural,” Carnacki said, rendering Julian’s efforts moot.

Arkwright raised his brows. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Very serious,” Dr. Jessop said. “So serious, in fact, that I must insist you all leave the room and allow my patient his rest.”

Julian, who had found himself feeling more and more grateful for the surgeon’s attendance by the moment, lost all his gratitude as Dr. Jessop ushered him out along with Arkwright and Carnacki.

“I do wish you’d explain all this to my aunt,” Arkwright told Carnacki.

“I’m only too happy to do so,” Carnacki said.

Julian barely heard them, his gaze lingering on the closed door between him and Ned. He told himself Ned would be fine, that he had a surgeon attending and was already well on the road to convalescence. Nothing would befall him in that room.

Unless, of course, the spectral knight returned to finish what it had started.

Arkwright led Carnacki away down the hall, the pair of them having apparently forgotten Julian’s presence. All the better, Julian thought, and brought out his wand. A few quick gestures sketched over the doorknob, and if anyone but himself, Ned, or Dr. Jessop touched it, Julian would know. A basic anti-burglary cantrip, one Bolster had shown him years ago at their first acquaintance. Simple as its construction was, it gave Julian some small peace of mind, which he greatly appreciated as he forced himself to walk casually down the hall and away from Ned’s sickroom.

In the foyer lay the ruined electric pentacle, just as Carnacki had promised. A puddle spread across the floorboards, washing away the runic circle, dotted with shards of glass that sparkled in the candlelight, and the iron spike appearing as a wicked weapon cast upon the ground. The faint blue luminescence had vanished. In the midst of it all stood a miserable-looking Dodgson staring helplessly at the wreckage surrounding him.

Julian glanced down the hall where Carnacki and Arkwright had gone, shrugged, and descended the grand staircase.

“I suppose you’ve heard Carnacki’s theory,” Julian said by way of a greeting. “Spectral knight a distraction to allow the ‘Ab-Natural’ to break the electric pentacle.”

“I did,” Dodgson said, so quietly Julian almost couldn’t hear him. “Smashed it, I mean.”

Julian, who’d bent to examine the iron spike, paused to look up at the unexpected revelation. “Not on purpose?”

“No!” A stricken look flashed across Dodgson’s already-pained features. “No, no, of course not. It’s only, when he ran upstairs, I had to sprint to catch him up, and in my haste I—I knocked it over.” He mumbled the last of it.

Julian stared at him. “God’s sake, man, it’s only a jar. And an accident, no less.”

“He told me to stay here,” Dodgson said firmly, more to himself than to Julian. “He specifically told me I must remain within the pentacle.”

“If he’s the sort of man to hold a simple mistake against you,” said Julian, “then I’d hardly call him a friend.”

An awkward silence ensued. Julian, not wishing to stare the obviously uncomfortable Dodgson out of countenance, turned to look over the rest of the room. The tangled mess of the electric pentacle didn’t hold his attention, either, and he looked up to the grand staircase—

And the suits of armor flanking it.

Julian felt more than a little stupid for not thinking of them earlier. He supposed the immediate crisis of Ned’s injury had distracted him.

Better to find the solution late than not at all, he reasoned, and stepped forward to examine them more closely.

His initial excitement quickly dimmed. The suits of armor bore swords, whilst Ned’s wound had been inflicted with a blunt force weapon, likely a mace. For that matter, if the coating of dust were any indication, these suits of armor had not been moved or worn in some years.

Still, that didn’t mean they were the only ones in the house.

“Did Sir Randolph collect these, do you know?” Julian asked with carefully-casual disinterest. “Arms, armor, that sort of thing?”

Dodgson, eager to assist anyone in Carnacki’s absence, lit up. “His grandfather did. They had a whole roomful at one point, but…” His expression dimmed. “I’m afraid what with the ‘change being what it is, they’ve had to let some pieces go. Auctions and the like. Arkwright helped her ladyship negotiate the matter.”

“Kept these, though,” Julian said, pointing the suits of armor out with his wand.

“Well, they’re the oldest,” Dodgson explained. “And there’s a particular family attachment to them, I believe.”

“Not all that’s left of the collection, I hope?” said Julian.

Dodgson furrowed his brow in thought. “I don’t know. I hope not. Lovely pieces, all of them.”

Julian resisted the urge to ask a pointed question about a mace. “Indeed. It’d be a shame to see them all gone.”

“Dodgson!”

Both Dodgson and Julian looked up to the top of the grand staircase, where Carnacki had reappeared.

“Come with me,” Carnacki said. “I require your assistance in the SaaaMaaa Ritual.”

Dodgson huffed and puffed his way up the staircase with nary a backwards glance for Julian—which suited Julian fine. He watched them go, waited for their footsteps to echo away, then brought out his wand and approached the suits of armor.

First, a quick Light cantrip. Nevermind that Ned would be far better suited to this work, would do it far more neatly and with more finesse, would interpret the results in such a way as to offer far more insight into the mystery. Julian pushed all thoughts of Ned from his mind and determinedly put his wand through the movements to sketch the sigil of Light from the solar alphabet. If either suit of armor were party to the events of the last hour, and if Ned’s hypothesis were correct, the resulting light should scatter over the surface of the steel.

The light did no such thing. It gleamed as much as it could against the dull and dusty metal, then vanished.

Mere ordinary suits of armor, then. Julian stepped back to reconsider. Not these suits of armor, but definitely a suit of armor—he was sure of what he’d seen in the camera flash and after. Perhaps one of the items Arkwright had auctioned off had contained a curse to prevent its removal from the family. If such a piece were sold, it would return to wreak vengeance upon those who had removed it from its kith and kin. Though that didn’t explain why it’d attacked Julian and Ned in particular. Perhaps the curse was poorly worded, specifying “attack those under this roof” rather than “attack those of this bloodline”.

It would be a great deal of work, Julian reflected, to bring a suit of armor to life. Cursing a candlestick to whack a man in the head was one thing. One moving piece, one target, one result. A suit of armor, however, by definition was comprised of enough moving pieces to wrap around a human body in combat. And like a human body in combat, it performed a wide variety of actions; running, dodging, hacking, slashing, bashing, etc. For such a curse to account for all of them, it must be either a work of art in its grammatical construction, or such a long and unwieldy string of sigils that casting it likely killed its creator. Which would, of course, only make such a curse even more potent.

Julian thought back to all he could remember of enchanting objects. He wished he were in London again, or someplace else convenient to telegraph Wynchcomb for advice. Wynchcomb had a knack for automatons, evidenced in the work he produced for the family business. Whilst _Ganymede and the Eagle_ was little larger than a breadbox, and cycled through a limited set of movements, they moved so fluidly and with such complexity that Julian felt secure in declaring it, and other Wynchcomb pieces, the best possible examples of automaton that modern metaphysics could produce. Yet he doubted even Wynchcomb could craft anything like the invisible knight.

Or perhaps Carnacki was right. Perhaps it was an “Ab-Natural”.

Julian had just decided that a curse seemed far more likely than an automaton when an arm came around his throat from behind, a bag dropped over his head, and a sharp blow struck the back of his skull.


	8. Chapter 8

Ned fell asleep with Dr. Jessop administering morphine and Julian hovering over the pair of them.

He awoke alone.

He blinked, his mind still muddled by a heady combination of sleep and opiates, at the empty room around him. A single candle flickered on the night-stand, sending otherwise stationary shadows into fluttering motion. The curtains were drawn, with a faint grey light leaking out from beneath them which could bespeak either dawn or twilight.

Ned sat up with the intention to find his watch and narrow down the time. His head swam as he rose, the whole room tilting to the left, and he had to shut his eyes whilst he waited for it to stop, supporting himself on one trembling arm.

When he opened his eyes again, the room appeared brighter. The reason for this became apparent as he realized he was no longer alone.

A figure stood in the corner of the room. It had a faint luminescence all its own, not quite as bright as the candle, but more steady. As Ned’s eyes adjusted to the new light, the figure’s details came into focus. A man, middle-aged, in sackcloth robes tied by a rope for a belt, with his round cheeks clean-shaven and his hair tonsured, and his hollow eyes gazing down upon Ned with a wistful expression.

Ned blinked again. The man remained, so he said the only thing he could think of. “Good morning.”

The man—a monk, Ned realized, his muddled mind finally putting the pieces together—did not reply.

“Is it morning?” Ned asked.

The monk said nothing. But with a significant glance at Ned, he and crossed the room to stand in the middle of the far wall, then stood staring at Ned once more.

Ned didn’t think this new position necessarily afforded the monk a better view of him, but far be it from him to question the methods of phantoms. “Is there something I can do to help you?”

The monk stared a moment longer, then reached out to press his palm against the wainscoting. Still holding Ned’s gaze, he stepped to the side—

And vanished through the wall without a sound.

Ned supposed that was just the sort of thing a ghost might be expected to do, though he wished the monk had remained to give a better account of himself.

Since the room had stopped spinning, Ned supposed it safe to attempt to rise again. This time he made it into a sitting position. Groping around for his watch, he found a dressing gown on the seat of a chair by the bed, and donned it without a second thought. He found his watch at last, by his suitcase with the rest of his clothes. Given he already had the gown on, he didn’t suppose it worth the effort of getting dressed—particularly when he found his wand along with his watch, which seemed as good an excuse as any to shuffle across the room to the spot on the wainscoting where the monk had disappeared.

Later, when explaining the matter to Julian, he would blame all of this on the morphine.

At present, he raised his wand to the wainscoting and formed a sequence of sigils more from memory than conscious thought, the grammar coming together like weaving dreams, into a command: “Light the way.”

A flicker of gold outlined one particular oaken panel.

Ned smiled to himself. This was just like any one of the dozens of penny-dreadful adventures he’d read as a schoolboy. He only wished Julian was here to witness it with him. He considered pausing his investigation and going to fetch him—but the golden glow proved too tempting, and he found himself already sketching the sigils which would beckon the secret passage to open.

The final sign locked into place with a thud, making Ned’s stomach drop as if he’d missed a step on a staircase and begun to fall. He steadied himself against the wall in case the room decided to spin again.

Instead, the wainscoting puckered, then splintered, then split in twain, creaking outward to form a doorway into a black abyss.

Using the light of his glamoured watch-face, Ned peered inside.

A spiral staircase descended, stone walls closed in tight around its curve and its steps worn smooth down the center.

Wand in one hand and pocket-watch in the other, Ned began to climb down.


	9. Chapter 9

The blow to the back of the head had stunned Julian for but a moment. Just long enough for the brute behind him to tie his wrists to his ankles. He thrashed, of course, and shouted through the bag, but that brought him only limited success. While it did get his assailant to drop him to the floor—painful, yet not so painful as to prevent Julian from rolling away, stopping only when his hipbone struck the corner of what he supposed was the bottom step of the grand staircase—a few heavy thudding steps brought the brute to him in short order, this time with a gag to tie over the bag, forcing the rough canvas into Julian’s mouth and silencing his shouts. Then he was up again, tossed over a shoulder like a sack of so much coal, and bouncing back-and-forth in time with his captor’s strides.

Rather than ascending the grand staircase, however, or even crossing the foyer to one of the many ground-floor passages of the massive mansion, Julian felt himself drop, drop, drop downward, ever tightly-turning clockwise.

A spiral staircase, Julian concluded. Given they’d begun their encounter on the ground floor, he knew they must be descending into the cellar. He struggled again. This time his captor banged his head against a wall—stone, judging by the density and the sharp pain it brought to Julian’s skull—to silence him. Stars burst out in the darkness of Julian’s vision within the bag, and many moments passed before he could think again.

By then they’d stopped descending and instead moved forward through a damp, echoing passage, water dripping audibly from above. Then there came the scrape of a key in a lock, the creak of ancient hinges, and Julian found himself deposited none-too-gently upon a smooth flat surface.

Before he could roll away, bag and gag alike were ripped off his head.

Marked for death, then, he concluded. An attacker who wished to leave him alive would never have let him see his face. Not even by the weakly guttering candlelight of the subterranean chamber.

“Arkwright,” said Julian.

Arkwright snorted. “I expect you knew all along, as consulting detective.”

“I’m afraid I must disappoint you,” Julian replied, taking the opportunity to glance around the room. A cellar, obviously. A wine cellar, according to the racks lining the walls—more properly a former wine cellar, as these racks stood almost empty. Sell the wine and spare the armor, Julian supposed, as several disjointed pieces of the latter lay scattered about the room. Apparently the entire collection had escaped the auction block. Even a familiar-looking suit standing ready in the center of the room, with a familiar and wicked mace leaning against its knee. He thought at first there were multiples of the thing, then realized he’d simply caught its reflection in the full-length mirror on an ornate stand in the corner. The mirror also afforded him a view of his fellow captives; Dr. Jessop, Dodgson, and Carnacki all slumped together at the base of an altar, Carnacki with his camera still slung around his neck, and atop the altar itself, Julian came face-to-face with his own reflection. A chalk circle with runes surrounded him—real runes, not Carnacki’s scrawlings. But the detail Julian found most concerning was no matter how he rolled his eyes or turned his head, no matter which corner of the reflection he examined…

He saw no sign of Ned.

Perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps Ned had escaped Arkwright’s mad scheme entirely.

Or perhaps he was already dead.

Julian forced his mind away from the unthinkable—though he had to admit the presence of Dr. Jessop didn’t bode well for his patient—and turned it towards his imminent escape.

Arkwright, meanwhile, had picked through the piles of weaponry and retrieved a particular knife. It gleamed silver in the candlelight, its single-edged blade curving to a point, and its pommel shaped like the head of a ram. Ceremonial as well as practical, Julian thought, which, much like every other detail in the wine cellar, boded ill for him. He wished he’d brought his pistol with him from London, though he supposed even if he had it, he wouldn’t be able to get to it now.

“What’s your plan, then?” Julian asked, forcing a conversational tone. “You might as well tell me. I know I’m a dead man.”

Arkwright ignored him, continuing to examine his knife.

Julian spared another glance in the mirror towards the unconscious—or perhaps already deceased—forms of Jessop, Dodgson, and Carnacki. “You’ve lured us here under false pretenses, that much is obvious.”

Arkwright sighed, transferred the knife to his left hand, and picked up the abandoned gag in its stead.

Julian supposed it had been too much to hope for to suppose Arkwright might set the knife down entirely within his reach. “And you’re killing us all for—what, exactly? Elimination of witnesses?”

Arkwright brought the gag up to Julian’s mouth—and paused, his head jerking ‘round towards a creaking sound in the opposite corner of the room. Julian followed his gaze and found himself likewise compelled to gape.

One of the wine racks had split down the middle, opening wide to reveal a passage to a spiral staircase not unlike the one Julian himself had been carried down scant minutes before—and in the doorway of the passage stood Ned, clad only in small-clothes and dressing-gown, with his light-glamoured watch in one hand and his wand in the other.

Ned appeared almost as puzzled to see them both in turn—which was understandable, given the sacrificial circumstances. “Good morning.”

Julian almost yelled for him to run, but stopped himself. In his weakened condition, Ned would be quickly overcome by Arkwright, and even if he sounded the alarm, all the staff might well be loyal to the nephew of their mistress.

Arkwright recovered from his surprise with a sneer. “I suppose you also want an explanation?”

Ned blinked at him, glanced around the room, and replied, “You’re sacrificing your friends to enchant your automaton.”

Arkwright stared at him. Julian did the same, noting the blood seeping through the bandages around Ned’s shoulder. No doubt the morphine distracted him from the damage he did to his wound by wandering around the mansion—though under the current circumstances, Julian could hardly chide him for it.

“I expect you chose Carnacki in particular,” Ned continued, “because your expertise in metaphysics made his tales of the supernatural particularly vexing. And then the rest because, well, you needed more bodies, and since they comprise all the friends Carnacki has in the world—according to Dodgson’s accounts, but you’d know better, being one of them—they’d be the only ones to notice him vanishing. And if they all vanish in the course of one of Carnacki’s investigations, well then, there’s no rational explanation required.”

Julian tore his gaze away from Ned. Ned was stalling, talking to distract Arkwright, and it was up to Julian to figure out what to do with the opportunity. He glanced over the room again, and his eyes fell upon Carnacki’s reflection.

And the camera still around his neck.

“As for the automaton,” Ned went on, “it’s rather a large piece. Getting it moving under its own power would be difficult enough. Scattering light across the surface to render it invisible only makes the enchantment more complicated. And then astral-projecting it through the mirror to carry out your orders—it’s a wonder you haven’t collapsed already.”

Carnacki’s head slumped forward, exposing the nape of his neck and the camera strap around it. Julian shifted experimentally on the altar. Though his hands remained tied behind his back, he thought he just might be able to reach…

Arkwright didn’t appear to notice the movement. Julian moved again, still cautious, bringing his tied hands closer and closer to the edge of the altar. Guiding his aim by the reflection in the mirror, he dropped his hands down, his fingertips groping for the camera strap.

“Amateur nonconforming metaphysics,” Ned spoke on all the while. “You’re lucky it hasn’t blown up in your face before now. You can only manage it for a few minutes as a time as it is, but with the permanent energy transference of three human lives… Well, that’d about do it, wouldn’t it?”

Julian’s fingertips touched the leather strap. He hooked his knuckles under it and pulled up—cautiously, gently—out and over Carnacki’s head. His shoulders ached with contortion. Pins and needles plagued his hands, their circulation cut off by the rope. Every movement guessed at and second-guessed, his reversed image in the mirror tricking him in his efforts at progress.

“Lynes makes four,” Arkwright noted. “And you yourself will bring it up to five.”

The camera strap was in his grasp. It was freed from Carnacki’s neck. The camera was pulled up, up, up, silent, swaying, closer and closer to Julian’s hands.

“More than sufficient for your purposes,” Ned agreed. “Though I fear we may disappoint you.”

Julian had the camera. Flash and all. His rapidly-numbing fingertips groped for the shutter.

“Ned!” Julian shouted. “Don’t look!”

He didn’t wait to see if Ned had shut his eyes before he closed his own.

The flash burst through the chamber with such violent brightness that Julian’s vision flared red even through his eyelids. A roar of outrage followed; Arkwright, evidently blinded. Julian dropped the camera and forced his own eyes open. The after-image of the flash confused his pupils, and it took him longer than he’d have liked to get his bearings, but his vision focused at last, showing him Arkwright stumbling away with his hands over his eyes, and the ceremonial knife abandoned upon the altar.

Julian grabbed the knife.

Ned grabbed Arkwright.

Julian stopped in the midst of sawing through his bonds and stared, aghast, as Ned tackled Arkwright much like he’d tackled Julian the night before, by ducking low and launching himself at the man’s ribs in a move that would’ve done any rugby team proud. Arkwright crashed into the stacks of armor. Greaves, gauntlets, and cuirasses all rained down upon the pair of them with a noise like a thunderstorm at war with a brigade of fireworks. This time, however, Ned did not remain slumped atop his victim but rose up, armor clattering to the floor as he disengaged from his opponent, wand already raised towards the glittering suit of armor in the center of the chamber.

Julian broke off staring and set about cutting himself free—quick enough work, once he’d slipped the blade in between his wrists. He leapt off the altar and bent to examine his fellow captives. All breathing—Arkwright had required live sacrifices for his plan, after all. Julian selected Carnacki as his most likely ally and, with admitted satisfaction, slapped him across the face.

Carnacki groaned and shook his head. “What?”

“Arkwright’s trying to kill us,” Julian barked at him. “Get up!”

To his credit, Carnacki caught on rather quick, struggling to his feet. Julian moved on to Dr. Jessop, whom he intended to rouse a little more gently than he’d done for Carnacki. Further clanging and clamoring announced that Arkwright, too, had risen.

But along with that came a decidedly deeper and more resonant clang, as Ned put the final stroke on his enchantment, and the half-invisible suit of armor shuddered to life.

Ned slumped back against the wine-racks. Julian feared he’d collapsed entirely, but Ned raised his head and his wand, and with another few flicks, the armor turned to regard its creator.

Arkwright gaped in impotent fury at his wayward automaton. It stepped toward him. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a wand—

Which clattered to the floor as his automaton’s mace came down upon his head.

Arkwright crumpled to the ground. The victory was fleeting, for Julian at least, because Ned did the same an instant afterward.

Julian gave up on his fellow prisoners and sprinted across the room to him. “Ned? Ned!”

Ned was breathing, thank God, but insensible to Julian’s shouts. Julian took him in his arms and eased him to the floor. Behind him, the automaton made a groaning sound. He turned just in time to see it collapse to pieces, crumpling in on itself without a master to guide its enchantment.

Good, Julian thought, and returned to the more pressing matter of Ned. Over his shoulder he could just hear Carnacki speaking.

“Wake up, Jessop, old chap. Mr. Mathey needs you.”


	10. Chapter 10

_ARKWRIGHT AUTOMATON CONFISCATED BY COMMONS_ declared the _London Star_ ’s headline.

“Took them long enough,” Julian muttered, passing the paper to Ned, who reclined on the sofa beside him with his head against his shoulder.

“There was the matter of the armor being a family heirloom,” Ned replied, though in truth he agreed with Julian. However, the courts still tended to favor the sensibilities of the old families, and Lady Grey’s family was among the oldest in the county. Small wonder it’d required almost a month of argument to determine whether or not the nonconforming automaton could be merely disenchanted and returned to her household, or if it had to be confiscated entirely. In the end, Ned felt they’d come to the correct decision. Eventually.

“I’m just glad they accepted your written testimony,” Julian said.

Given the extremity of injury Ned accumulated in the course of the case, the court could do little else but accept Ned’s testimony in writing—unless they wanted to delay the matter further until he was fully recovered and able to appear in court in person.

Even now, a month after the fact, he was still housebound by doctor’s orders. He’d spent a full fortnight completely bedridden—fortunately after transport from Lady Grey’s manor back to a proper hospital in London—and then, when he could finally go home, he was forbidden to leave his rooms whilst he convalesced.

Writing out his testimony had been a welcome escape from the tedium of being cooped up in his rooms. It had also formed a skeleton of the bare facts from which he could build the article he submitted on the incident for _The Metaphysician_. Unable to hand-write it himself with his wounded shoulder, he’d taken the unthinkable liberty of asking Miss Frost to attend him in his flat and assist him in dictation. She’d not only typed it up admirably but also helped him properly identify the mending cantrip used by Dr. Jessop. For that, Ned gave her co-author credit, a fact almost as shocking to _The Metaphysician_ ’s readership as the story itself.

Dodgson had also written up the case for _Blackwood’s Bizarre Bazaar_ , covering all the same events but in very different language. The end result was melodramatic in the extreme. Ned almost proposed a dramatic reading with Julian, but as matters stood, the wounds were still too fresh—literally—for him to feel comfortable mocking _The Armour Invisible_.

“It will go nicely with _The Thing Invisible_ and _The Horse Invisible_ ,” Julian had said at the time, with poorly-disguised scorn.

Ned had agreed with a laugh.

Julian had remained at his side from the moment he left hospital. He complained about Ned’s housekeeper clucking up a fuss until Ned pointed out the only person fussing over him more than his housekeeper was Julian himself. The comment gave Julian greater pause than Ned had expected.

“D’you mind it much?” Julian had asked him.

“I don’t mind the fuss at all,” Ned had replied. “Though if it’ll soothe your wounded pride, I’ll admit I prefer your fussing over hers.”

To Ned’s surprise, faint color had actually come to Julian’s cheeks, and after a moment, Julian bent to give him a rather tender kiss upon the forehead. Ned had taken the opportunity to seize him by the collar and pull him down into a not-so-tender embrace, nevertheless appreciated.

At present, Julian again picked up the copy of _Blackwood’s Bizarre Bazaar_ which contained _The Armour Invisible_. “I hate to think Carnacki will get more credibility out of this.”

“You don’t think it deserved?” Ned asked.

Julian raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you?”

Ned shrugged. “All I know is if it weren’t for that monk…” He left the thought unfinished, not wishing to give voice to the worst possible outcome. He didn’t know what he’d do now if he hadn’t found Julian in time.

“What monk?” Julian asked after an uncomfortable pause.

Ned supposed the matter-of-fact approach was the only way to move forward. “While I was in bed, after Dr. Jessop gave me the morphine, I woke up to find a luminescent monk in my room. I followed him through the wainscoting, and the passage led me down to Arkwright’s makeshift workshop in the wine cellar. I’d never have found it on my own—not in that state.”

Julian gave him a look he couldn’t quite read. “You didn’t include that in your written testimony.”

Nor in the write-up for _The Metaphysician_. “I didn’t think it was relevant.”

Julian said nothing, but Ned could well imagine what he thought, how the wheels turned in that brilliant head of his.

“Perhaps,” Julian said at last, “Arkwright cast the illusion of a monk to lead you down into his workshop. Luring you in so he could eliminate all outside witnesses in one fell swoop.”

“Perhaps,” Ned conceded. Arkwright was dead, slain by his own invisible knight. They could never know for certain.

Even with Ned’s agreement, Julian didn’t appear entirely convinced. “At any rate, you can hardly believe the electric pentacle helped.”

“No,” Ned concurred. “But it didn’t exactly hurt, either.”

Julian made a noncommittal noise, still deep in thought. Ned waited patiently. He had all the time in the world to wait, what with convalescence keeping him out of his chambers.

“Next time,” Julian declared, “I’m bringing along my pistol.”

Ned blinked at him. “If you must.”

“I don’t like—” Julian began, before cutting himself off and fixing Ned with another considering look. There was frustration in it, yes, but also something else. Belatedly, Ned recognized it as concern. “I’m glad you got to me in time. But if we should ever find ourselves in such a fix again… I’d like to do a better job of rescuing you.”

Ned didn’t quite know what to say. Thank-you hardly seemed sufficient. “I think you did a rather handsome job of it.”

“Handsome?” Julian echoed with a wry smile.

“Handsome,” Ned said firmly, and rewarded the resulting smile with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Carnacki the Ghost-Finder and friends are borrowed from William Hope Hodgson and warped beyond recognition in all but name, with apologies.


End file.
